Diane Schoemperlen won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction with Forms of Devotion, her collection of short stories and pictures. That same distinctive and wonderfully entertaining voice infuses this latest collection, a compendium of 21 stories chosen by Schoemperlen from new, out-of-print and favorite works. “Losing Ground” is a remarkable coming-of-age story; “The Man of My Dreams” pulls us into a place where we too wonder what is real and what is dreamed; and “Forms of Devotion” explores with delicate irony what it means to be faithful in a secular, consumer-driven world.

Every one of these pieces shines with Schoemperlen’s fresh and often deadpan funny voice, offering a compulsively readable mix of deeply felt emotion and finely wrought intellect. Red Plaid Shirt was shortlisted for the Upper Canada Brewing Company Writers’ Craft Award.

DIANE SCHOEMPERLEN is the award-winning author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction. Her works include In the Language of Love, which was short-listed for the Books in Canada/W.H. Smith First Novel Award; Forms of Devotion, a collection of illustrated stories which won the Governor General’s Award and was adapted as a stage play; Our Lady of the Lost and Found; Red Plaid Shirt: New and Selected Stories; Names of the Dead: An Elegy for the Victims of September 11; and At a Loss for Words: A Post-Romantic Novel. She recently published a collection called By the Book: Stories and Pictures, illustrated with her own full-colour collages, which was long listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. She is the recipient of the Marian Engel Award from the Writers’ Trust of Canada.

Twitter: @dianesch

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